


Meathook

by scrapbullet



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-06
Updated: 2010-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-24 01:54:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapbullet/pseuds/scrapbullet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something to be said about revenge, Cobb muses as he licks his fingers, something to be said about how satisfying it can be. Not a drop had been spilt on his suit (Westwood, but who wants to know?) but his lips and chin are coated in blood, smeared across his cheek thanks to the feeding frenzy that had assuaged him. Where Cobb is a vampire, Browning's been a naughty boy and vengeance tastes very sweet indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meathook

Browning is unrecognisable. His face, mangled to the point that not even dental records could identify him, is a slick mess of brains and gore, a squashed eyeball lying on his cheek leaking clear, viscous fluid. His chest and abdomen are hollowed out, each and every organ shrivelled as if some maniacal beast has sunk their teeth in and sucked out the ambrosia, cracked ribs startling white against red so dark it's almost black. His crotch is in ruins. There's nothing left of his manhood; discarded like so much rubbish.

He'd deserved it.

There's something to be said about revenge, Cobb muses as he licks his fingers, something to be said about how satisfying it can be. Not a drop had been spilt on his suit (Westwood, but who wants to know?) but his lips and chin are coated in blood, smeared across his cheek thanks to the feeding frenzy that had assuaged him. It's not like Cobb to be messy, not at all, but that's the thing about anger, about rage. It has a confounding tendency to cloud one's mental faculties.

In the end, it'd been the least that Browning had deserved. When they'd found out what he'd done, Cobb and Eames and Arthur, there had been raw silence. Like a punch in the face it had resonated through each and every one of them (Ariadne had found out later, her sweet face turning white with speechless horror) and yet, Cobb had felt it in his bones. A pain like you could never imagine.

Guilt, maybe? Maybe not.

Eames had glowered; an expression not particularly attractive on his usually open face. Arthur had mirrored him, his dark eyes almost black and Cobb... Cobb had shook for the first time since he died, since he'd died and become a vampire. He'd shook with an anger so primal that Arthur and Eames, still so utterly fragile and human, had stepped back and eyed him with something like trepidation, their hearts thumping loudly in their chests.

Something like fear.

What Browning did to Robert was - is - unacceptable.

And Cobb, monster though he is, doesn't condone the acts of pedophiles.

The Statute of Limitations hindered them; too long had passed since the initial crime to hold up in court. Robert Fischer Jr had been only seven years old when Browning began to groom him. Seven years old when he first raped him. For five, long years he manipulated Robert - fucked him, made Robert love him, passed him around like a prostitute -- until he'd decided that, at the still tender age of twelve, his dear nephew was much too old to continue playing with. The abuse had stopped, but the damage had been done.

Cobb has seen into Robert's delicate mind. All those synapses, sparking with memory and confusion... His mother had died. He'd been vulnerable. Easy pickings. And when it ended, Robert had been so broken. Is _still_ broken, somewhere beneath the facade.

He'd thought his Uncle had loved him.

And Browning? Browning had got away with it.

Until Cobb came along, that is.

Browning had screamed so wonderfully Cobb had almost thought his voice would give out. Such pain they'd inflicted on him - all deserved, of course - and Arthur and Eames bore witness. They'd watched as Browning's blood stained the floor, watched as his lungs filled with fluid, until he could scream no longer. Watched until they could watch no longer.

Revenge is sweet, or so they say.

"You lost yourself," Eames notes, folds his arms across his chest and looks at Browning's corpse with obvious satisfaction. He'd sanded those fingertips down to the bone until Browning had begged, but he never even blinked. Cobb feels... proud. Yes. He feels proud. "You lost yourself," Eames repeats, but it's obvious that he doesn't really care, "and we made one hell of a mess."

"The mess will be the last thing on your mind if they ever catch us," Arthur scowls. But he's pleased, Cobb can tell, not so much smug as noting a job well done. The latex gloves he, and Eames, wear are thick with the evidence of the slaughter as their hands meet, fingers intertwining.

Slaughter. Like an animal.

It's oddly fitting.

Cobb hums. "They won't catch us. We've done all we can to prevent it."

"Don't worry about that, worry about when Robert finds out. He'll know it was us, that I can guarantee." Eames kicks Browning's leg, huffs a disgusted sound in the back of his throat as the flesh gives way and fresh blood spurts sluggishly onto the carpet.

Cobb shakes his head. "Leave that to me. If it comes to it I'll leave your involvement out. He doesn't have to know you were here."

"If you think it’s wise," Eames says, _sotto voce_.

"No." There is a side to Arthur, much like Eames, that Cobb finds fascinating. Despite the obvious lust to abide by the rules and regulations of their trade - criminals they may be, but they're _professionals_ , and there's no need to act like a common thug - there is a man, beneath the surface, that is just as deadly and dangerous as Cobb is. That desires vengeances as much as Cobb does. "You should tell him. He needs to know."

Eames grips Arthur’s hand, latex sliding against latex. “Perhaps it would be best if he never knew it was us at all.”

Arthur sighs, looks at Eames as if he’s the patient teacher and Eames is the wayward child. “Robert’s no idiot. He’ll know. Best to tell him now and give him time to think over it. Give him time to become acclimated, calm down.”

“Quick and sudden, you mean.” Eames’ lips quirk, half amused. “Like ripping off a plaster.”

Cocking an eyebrow Cobb only nods. It’s an adequate analogy. "Fair enough."

He’ll tell Robert they beat Browning into a ruddy paste, but Cobb doubts it’ll go over well. It never does.

They leave, and none of them look at the carcass on the floor, still and desecrated and absolutely, positively dead.

-

Robert stirs, blinking drowsily. He doesn't even remember falling asleep, Machiavelli still open in his lap. It's late - the clock reads five oh three in the morning and Cobb is sitting in the armchair opposite, his fingers steepled together as he looks at Robert with an expression of concentration on his face.

He's used to it by now, to Cobb's strangeness. It had taken him a while, initially, to become accustomed to the skin that is as pale and hard as marble, to the way that Cobb seems to know exactly what he's thinking. It had taken longer still to yearn for his kisses, kisses that come quick and sudden and tasting of preternatural power. To open up his mind and his heart, ignore that human instinct within that tells him to run and never look back.

He blinks, and Cobb is beside him, his fingers in Robert's hair.

"I have to tell you something," he says, brings Robert close. Practically pulls Robert into his lap and nuzzles at his throat like a starving man.

Cobb sighs, presses his cold fingers to the small of Robert's back. It's possession and affection. It might even be love.

“Tell me,” Robert demands, and Cobb hums, a laugh low and deep in his chest that warms from the inside out. Those hands, so cold and white, snake beneath his shirt and draws nonsensical shapes on the small of his back. Sharp nails bite into tender flesh and Robert hisses, Cobb murmuring something that might be approval, blood staining his fingers.

Cobb is silent, and pensive. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, not really, but there’s a stillness to him that suggests otherwise.

Suddenly Robert’s struck with the notion that the world has changed. Tipped on its head. Started spinning in another direction entirely.

And if the world has changed in some significant way, then what of it?

It can change all it wants. Robert doesn’t care.

He has this, strange as it is, and that’s all that matters.


End file.
